- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 5y
I don't know what Pure OCD means, but I have had OCD all of my life and I'm in recovery...
I always feel worse with my OCD after nights out/drinking. I am not alcoholic but I do think that alcohol/detoxing from it can make OCD worse
I stopped drinking two years ago, so I could get to the root cause of my illness. I had used alcohol and pot to blunt a lot of my ocd feelings. Probably kept me from seeking help for many years. Wish I had not self medicaided that way. Still struggling with the ocd on the regular. But love waking up without the hangovers
i can totally relate! stopped drinking 4 years ago and stopped smoking pot 1 1/2 years ago. both of which i used to self medicate. now i’m faced with ocd all up in my face.
@I n I I feel the same. The ocd is always present. Weird. At least I see it clearly now. Though there are times it would be nice to dull the feelings, I do like being present.
Yes.
Hi guys! I’m new here! I have struggled with OCD and insomnia since I was a child but wasn’t DX till recently. For the past 3-4 years I have struggled on and off with issues involving alchole and sleeping pills. I had been doing really well for awhile but recently had a relapse. Feeling very guilty. I used to go to meetings when I would notice my alchole intake increasing but always felt a little out of place due too the OCD component. Which has led me here...
we are here for you! You’re not alone!
Thank you. It feels better just knowing this exists!
Yep. It’s a battle for me too. Keep fighting brother.
Glad to see I’m not alone. Been struggling recently with false memory OCD in my recovery- thoughts that maybe I’ve taken a drink in sobriety and am hiding it or even forgotten about it, thinking about nights out where I’ve stayed sober and gotten a non-alcoholic beverage but my mind legimately convinces me it had alcohol in it. It’s brutal.
It's tough if you're truly "dual diagnosed" with addiction and mental illness (OCD) I would just say stay the course my friend! It gets tricky for me because AA around my area are super big into "sigularity of purpose" They don't want to hear about your mental health issues and...ugh...I've actually seen them ask someone to leave for mentioning drugs! We are all just trying to do the right thing but...that looks different to different people. I take Suboxone daily so it's a deal where you are at times, "sober with the exception of." The NA meetings around here are a mess! No sober time, shady shit going on in the parking lot...you're better off to just go to AA meetings and not bring up certain things. Idk you personally, but just know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Hey all, I’ve been having some ebbs and flows in recovery, but for the most part I’ve really had a lot of improvements in quality of life since starting treatment in 2023. Something that really trips me up is ruminating on my past and looking for “evidence” or “proof” that the things that I’m obsessed with are real and not OCD. I spend quite a lot of time doing this. I wasn’t fully aware I was doing it until recently. Example: that I’m secretly gay and lying to everyone (I’m bi), that I’m a horrible person deep down, that I’ve never actually loved any person including my family, that I have the “wrong” political or religious beliefs. I look for proof in every corner of my past. It makes some sense that I think this way because with my previous therapist, who I saw for 8 years and did not diagnose me with OCD, we would look for evidence and proof that my obsessions are irrational and I learned to deal with them that way. At the time it was a lot of health concern and contamination themes, but I literally learned to ruminate and search for relief. But I just kept getting sicker and sicker until I got diagnosed with OCD. It’s a frustrating compulsion that keeps showing up for me. What if these scary things are true? What if it’s not OCD at all and I’m in denial? Have I lied my way into thinking I have OCD? It’s so hard. Anyway, I’m curious if anyone else has come across this in recovery? Let me know your thoughts and I hope you’re well. ❤️
The subject of OCD matters to the sufferer because it feels like confirmation that they are fundamentally unlovable and unwanted—as if even existence itself doesn’t want them. They feel like an error, carrying a deep sense of guilt and shame, as if they were inherently wrong. They suffer from low self-esteem and a deep internalized shame, because long ago, they were fragmented and learned a pattern of fundamental distrust—especially self-distrust. But the real trouble doesn’t come from the content of the most vile or taboo thoughts. It comes from the fact that the sufferer lacks self-love. That’s why, when you begin to walk the road to recovery, you’re taught unconditional self-acceptance—because that’s what all sufferers of OCD have in common: if you aren’t 100% sure, if there isn’t absolute certainty, the doubt will continue to attack you and your core values. It will make you doubt everything—even your own aversion to the thoughts. You have to relearn how to trust yourself—not because you accept that you might become a murderer someday—but because you enter a deep state of acceptance about who you truly are. It’s not about becoming a monster at all. It’s about making peace with what lies at the root of the fear. Making peace with the guilt. With the shame. Making peace with yourself and the person you fear you might be. Because that fear is not rooted in reality. It’s not rooted in any true desire to act. It’s rooted in your identity—specifically, in what might threaten it. That’s what confirms the belief that you are fundamentally wrong. And OCD fuels that belief by using intrusive taboo thoughts to attack your very sense of self. But then I wonder: let’s say, for example, someone fears being or becoming a sexually dangerous person—how could that person practice unconditional self-acceptance? I would never accept myself if I were to harm anyone—the thought alone makes me want to cry. I know it’s not about whether or not someone acts on the thought. It’s about the core fear underneath it. So how do you accept yourself when the thoughts—and the feelings around them—feel so completely unacceptable ?
I’m curious if anyone else has ever had this. This is my specific theme in regards to my OCD that has been prevalent in my life since 2022. Quick back story: went to a party college for 4.5 years and had a blast, got as drunk as I wanted on weekends and never once felt bad about it. Then, hangovers got worse and I started partying too much. After graduation, I told myself that it’d be a really cool goal to get to the point where I could go out and just have 4 beers. Enough to enjoy myself, not enough to make me hungover. Well, this simple healthy goal turned into a massive obsession. Now, if I go over my limit of 4-5 beers/drinks, two things happen: 1. I give up and binge drink bc I might as well if I’m already over my limit. 2. The next day even if I’m super hungover, unless I can’t bc of work scheduling, I will perform a check where I drink 4 beers and see if I can still get drunk off of those. If I can get drunk, then I feel normal. If I am not as drunk, then this cycle continues. I worry about becoming an alcoholic all the time bc at this point in my life I am very active in my social scene, and alcohol is very much present. While I certainly do not have any family history of alcoholism nor the personality or drive to become one, I still fear that I might one day despite knowing I won’t. I also worry about raising my drinking tolerance by continuing to feed this obsession/compulsion loop. It’s slightly affected my personality and confidence. I’m aware it’s irrational and the solution is to simply cut back as anyone would and go out less frequently, or drink less frequently when I’m out. And yet, my other obsession with alcohol is experiencing the painful withdrawals that alcoholics experience when they stop drinking!! Despite never having experienced those withdrawals when I’ve not drank on a given night. So, it’s a weird one. Thinking the ERP is just going to be not performing those checks. If I’ve reached my limit and am not as drunk, okay. Alcohol absorption is affected by a lot. No need to check my tolerance nor go overboard since I’m not as drunk. We’ll see. I’m on Zoloft too which has helped a ton with other symptoms but this theme is making it less effective and I need to get control of it now.
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